Quickbites: Il Pappagallo Caffe

When asked about great Italian cuisine, I rarely direct people to downtown.  Not to say downtown has a lack of tasty Italian restaurants, because it doesn’t, but I find that the one must travel to the heart of an ethnic community to find the best authentic foods.  There are actually a few Italian communities spread around Metro Vancouver, including one in Burnaby Heights.  A drive down the street will reveal many Italian restaurants (Da Mario’s, Anton’s) and deli’s. There you’ll fine Il Pappagallo Caffe, located at the eastern tip of Hastings St.

 

I was recommended to Il Pappagallo Caffe by a friend with a cheesecake obsession.  According to her, it’s the best cheesecake in Vancouver (Trees Organic’s similar claims notwithstanding).  I’m admittedly not a huge dessert or cheesecake fan, but I’m always eager to try the “best” anything.

At first glance, Il Pappagallo resembles any other Starbucks’ knockoff, with its comfy low-light ambiance, chalkboard menu, and espresso-centric menu.  On closer glance, however, the cafe reveals its identity as a cheesecake cafe.  Their entire dessert display is dedicated to cheesecakes of all sorts: strawberry, chocolate, and pumpkin, to name a few.  There’s even a back fridge being used to cool their homemade graham crusts. Everything there is made from scratch, a huge difference after eating Safeway-brand cheesecake all my life.

 

Because there were three of us, we ordered one slice of cheesecake each.  We would later regret this, because the slices were ginormous!  A point (+1) for that and I cannot stress enough about the size.  You cannot tell the scale from the pictures but each slice was at least twice the size of a standard slice from Trees Organic, Cheesecake Factory, or any typical Milestones-type restaurant. It’s a full sixth of the entire pie and about the size of a joke-slice of cake one would give to their anorexic friend at a birthday party.  I’ve seen puppies smaller than the slice of cake I got.  Okay, enough about the size. Bottom line is, for $5, you get amazing value (+1) and enough cheesecake to feed a small family.

 

As for the actual cheesecake, the cheese part is softer and less dense than typical store-bought cheesecake, resembling homemade cheesecake more than anything. I’m sure there’s a name for this particular style of cheesecake, but I’m not aware of it.  It gets a bonus point (+1) for being less sweet than other cheesecakes I’ve had, which helps me feel less guilty for eating what is essentially a whole brick of cheese.  Both the strawberry and blueberry ones were topped by fresh fruit in a syrup, which you can’t really taste too much of as the ratio of cheese:syrup was about 10:1 per bite.  The Turtles-flavored cheesecake had the flavour infused in the cheese and was topped by bits of chocolate and caramel syrup.  The crust is made of graham crackers and a bit thicker than I’d like, and this is coming from someone who likes their crust.  On the bright side, the crust was light and not over-buttered like other cheesecakes.  On the downside, it was a bit too crumbly and I ended up with a mess of a plate.  But that’s probably just me being a messy eater.

Overall:

Il Pappagallo cafe is a cheesecake cafe hidden in the northeast corner of Burnaby. In my opinion, it's one of the best cheesecakes in Vancouver. You get value, quantity, and quality for the price you pay, and for cheesecake-lovers it’s well worth the travel out of Vancouver.

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